Activision's Call of Duty franchise is having a quarter-life crisis. 23 years after the first entry in 2003, the series has struggled to find an identity in the 2020s. Its brand of arcade shooter is no longer a go-to option, as Fortnite, extraction shooters, and hero shooters like Marvel Rivals and Overwatch have taken over the competitive multiplayer space.

Infinity Ward has tried to morph Call of Duty into a somewhat realistic tactical shooter with its recent Modern Warfare reboot, specifically Modern Warfare (2019) and Modern Warfare II (2022), but both games were received incredibly poorly by most die-hard Call of Duty fans because they diverged so much from what many love about the franchise.

So, with CoD MW4, what has Infinity Ward tried to do? Meet players in the middle. MW4 succeeds at maintaining the grittier, more realistic gunplay and movement, while rolling back some of the more drastic changes we saw in Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare II. It feels more arcadey.

However, many of Infinity Ward's lingering design and gameplay decisions from the modern era still show up and undermine the gunplay and gameplay more broadly.

Much of the complaints surrounding the rebooted Modern Warfare series' multiplayer (except Modern Warfare III, which was developed by Sledgehammer Games) come down to trying to bring more realistic elements to Call of Duty.

Slower movement, heavy gunplay, blinding muzzle flash and smoke when you fire weapons that obscure your view, more visual recoil, no mini-map – most of that is gone in MW4, or at least significantly toned down, and the game is much better for it.

Gunfights here are satisfying, as every gun has impact and feels meaty without feeling cumbersome. This isn't the "movement demon" style of gunplay we have seen in Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7, but it isn't the slog and drudgery we saw with the previous two Infinity Ward-developed Modern Warfare games.

It's a good balance, and the studio should be commended for finally being able to find that equilibrium. The studio's pedigree for incredible visuals and sound design also ripples through the multiplayer, as MW4 is by far the best-looking game in the series, with some incredible weapon sound effects.

New, tech-like enhanced smoke effects that allow you to see through smoke as you shoot through it, and some of the reflections on maps like Silkworm, show just how much dropping last-gen consoles has done for the series. I can't wait to see what effect this has for the more hardcore, high-stakes DMZ experience – MW4's third mode.

While the gunplay, sound, and gameplay in multiplayer are the best we have seen from the Modern Warfare reboot, playing the CoD MW4 beta has actually been a pretty miserable experience, thanks to Infinity Ward changing things for the sake of changing things. Back in 2019, the studio intended to launch Modern Warfare without a minimap in multiplayer.

A core, integral part of Call of Duty multiplayer was suddenly gone, and no one really ever asked for this. At the time, this was a highly disliked decision that was rolled back during Modern Warfare's open beta weekends. But that thinking is emblematic of Infinity Ward's modern design philosophy. A philosophy no one likes and one that is still present in MW4.

Maps in MW4 break away from the three-lane structure that has defined the series. MW4 has maps with too many interlinking paths, viewpoints to keep track of, and poorly designed areas. Infinity Ward has never been as married to a firm three-lane structure as Treyarch, but MW4's maps are just as bad as the studio's last two games.

Instead of having a few predictable spots enemies can be, you are often presented with close to a dozen different vantage points to keep track of.

This makes any kind of strategic, well-positioned play impossible, because the fast time-to-kill here in MW4 means you often are dead before you know it, as an enemy happened to be in one of the 11 headglitches or corners you hadn't checked in the two seconds you had since emerging from a piece of cover or doorway.

It's infuriating, and one example of this design can be found on the Rooftops map. The terrace side of the map has an east and west side. The west side has one window, a giant outbuilding which can be used as cover, three separate pieces of shoulder-height walls that players can hide behind relatively easily without exposing themselves, and an additional connecting corridor with a doorway players can wait at. The east side has two walls and one piece of cover. That piece of cover is quite far away from both of those walls and requires players to expose themselves, likely resulting in their deaths before they even reach safety.

It's an unbalanced map design that suggests little thought was put into these maps to create fair and balanced engagements and gunfights. These spaces were designed to feel realistic, but CoD MW4 is an arcade shooter, not a tactical military sim. Transit 213 is Shipment on acid, but this time the containers are buses, and you can shoot through them and the windows.

Cachette has far too many interweaving paths between its three lanes on what is already a small map. Silkworm is the best of the beta maps, and that is largely because it sticks to the traditional three-lane structure for the most part and clearly some thought has been put into sightlines and cover placement. Marry this with spawns that often place you in the middle of the map, right next to enemy players, or behind where you just died, and the flow of the entire game is flushed down the toilet. Everything is a crapshoot.

This is the most frustrating aspect of Infinity Ward's gameplay design and was a huge problem in Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare II, but CoD MW4 is filled with other niggles that feel like steps backwards. For some reason, we have gone back to having dozens and dozens of attachments for every weapon. Almost all of them have negative aspects, including scopes, leading to a weapon customisation system that is ocean-wide but puddle-deep.

Players have little incentive to play the objective because MW4 has killstreaks instead of scorestreaks, and the minimal progress objective play gives to these makes objective play useless, even in modes like Domination and Hardpoint. Explosive scorestreaks and placeable equipment are everywhere, leading to high levels of screen shake and spawning and instantly dying as you make the decision whether to look at the ground for mines or ahead for enemies.

All of this was an issue in previous recent Modern Warfare games by Infinity Ward, and to see the work that has been done to improve the movement and gunplay get ruined by these lingering design choices is just sad to see.

Infinity Ward hasn't made a truly good, let alone excellent, multiplayer experience since 2013's Call of Duty: Ghosts, and 13 years later, CoD MW4 is the closest it has come to regaining its crown over the franchise. CoD MW4 offers a fantastic gameplay experience and a welcome change of pace from the fast pace of the Black Ops series.

But if the studio can't get out of its own way and get over its obsession with adding unnecessary changes to differentiate itself, then MW4 will be another disappointing year for the franchise and further cement the slow death of Call of Duty multiplayer.

The CoD MW4 open beta begins on Friday 28 August at 6pm BST here in the UK.

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